I am a partner at Mercer, in the executive reward team. My day job is to advise companies and boards on everything that is mentioned in John Core’s paper, in particular how to make incentives work for a company, and how to make incentives work for shareholders. Core (2020) mentions that we need good-quality earnings to help ensure incentives are effective. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I would add a few more characteristics of a good incentive plan. In no particular order but certainly at the top, simple; an incentive plan needs to be simple in order to work effectively. What does simple mean? It normally means only one measure. But if you have only one measure, then it can be very sensitive to external uncontrollable factors. So, typically most companies would use more than one measure. It should certainly reinforce key objectives, and those objectives should be within the role and responsibilities of the individual that is participating in the incentive plan. For example, you would not necessarily use what we term a capital measure for someone three levels below the decision-making where capex is made. An incentive should not be unduly sensitive to external factors. For a CEO, where Core’s focus is on, you could argue that it should be somewhat subject to external factors because that is ultimately what shareholders are exposed to, but for people lower down the organisation you would try to dial out some of that noise from external factors, and I will come on to how companies do that shortly. Incentive outcomes are not unduly volatile. This is very important. Incentives are most motivational and trusted when they have a lack of volatility in their pay-out. This very much depends on the stage of growth the company is in, so for a small, start-up company you might expect some volatile outcomes but for a large, mature company like Shell, ideally your incentive outcomes should not be unduly volatile. Most companies would set targets such that for example their long-term incentive plan would pay out 70 per cent of the time and 20–30 per cent of the time it might not pay out at all. Lastly, the accounting charge should reflect the value delivered. This is something that Core focuses on in his study. Whilst this is important very much to boards and CEOs, it is less

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“财务报告对薪酬和激励的真正影响”——从业者的观点

我是美世 (Mercer) 高管奖励团队的合伙人。我的日常工作是就 John Core 论文中提到的所有内容向公司和董事会提供建议，特别是如何使激励对公司起作用，以及如何使激励对股东起作用。Core (2020) 提到我们需要高质量的收益来帮助确保激励措施有效。我完全同意这一点。我会添加一些好的激励计划的特征。没有特定的顺序，但肯定在顶部，简单；激励计划必须简单，才能有效运作。简单是什么意思？它通常仅表示一种措施。但如果你只有一个衡量标准，那么它可能对外部不可控因素非常敏感。因此，通常大多数公司会使用不止一种衡量标准。它当然应该加强关键目标，并且这些目标应该在参与激励计划的个人的角色和职责范围内。例如，您不一定会使用我们所说的资本衡量标准来衡量低于制定资本支出决策的三个级别的人。激励措施不应对外部因素过于敏感。对于 Core 的重点所在的 CEO，您可能会争辩说，它应该受到外部因素的影响，因为这是股东最终会接触到的，但对于组织下层的人，您会尝试拨出一些来自外部因素，我很快就会谈到公司如何做到这一点。激励结果不会过度波动。这个非常重要。当奖励的支出没有波动时，奖励是最有动力和最值得信赖的。这在很大程度上取决于公司所处的增长阶段，因此对于一家小型初创公司，您可能会期望一些不稳定的结果，但对于像壳牌这样的大型成熟公司，理想情况下，您的激励结果不应过度波动。大多数公司会设定目标，例如，他们的长期激励计划将支付 70% 的时间，而 20-30% 的时间可能根本不支付。最后，会计费用应反映交付的价值。这是Core在他的研究中重点关注的事情。虽然这对董事会和 CEO 来说非常重要，但它并不那么重要。大多数公司会设定目标，例如，他们的长期激励计划将支付 70% 的时间，而 20-30% 的时间可能根本不支付。最后，会计费用应反映交付的价值。这是Core在他的研究中重点关注的事情。虽然这对董事会和 CEO 来说非常重要，但它并不那么重要。大多数公司会设定目标，例如，他们的长期激励计划将支付 70% 的时间，而 20-30% 的时间可能根本不支付。最后，会计费用应反映交付的价值。这是Core在他的研究中重点关注的事情。虽然这对董事会和 CEO 来说非常重要，但